Sunday, March 30, 2014

The visit to the Museum of Moving
Images was very interesting. I enjoyed the tour because it gave me an
idea of all the different aspects involved in making moving images.
The interactivity of the museum make it that more engaging. One
aspect I found especially intriging was about sound. Our tour guide
demonstrated to us, all the different sounds that go into one
specific scene of a movie, the example he used was Titanic.
First off, he identified the different sounds that are included.
These sounds are: background sound, foley sounds, hard sounds,
dialogue and music. He then extracted each individual sound element
and demonstrated it to us by itself with the moving picture. What
became apparent pretty early on was that each sound by itself just
didn't seem to work with the image. It was either too loud, seemed
out of context or didn't match the action. Especially interesting
were the foley sounds. Foley sounds are added in post production and
are sounds such as foot steps, rain etc. These sounds are never
actually created from the action that is happening. For instance, the
sound of foot steps we hear in a movie is never actual recorded foot
steps. Or rain is never actually rain. So in Titanic we
see these ropes snapping off of the side of the ship and falling into
the water. This sound is actually created with a shot gun which was
set at a higher pitch. I found that really amazing. Being a foley
sound person means being extra creative about what sound sounds just
like something we would imagine it sounds like. This was my favorite
part of the tour! The tour guide was great at involving us in
guessing the different foley sounds and surprising us with the actual
answer.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

I
decided to do my “Soundwalk” in Prospect Park. More specifically,
I spent an hour at the southern end of the park, at the newly built
LeFrak Center which includes an ice skating rink and a set of new
benches by the lake. I spent an hour wandering around the rink and
the lake, sitting in multiple locations surrounding the area.

The
first thing I heard in the foreground was the music playing at the
ice skating rink. It was a Foster and The People song but I do not
know which one. This music, of course is for the enjoyment of the
skaters but also draws attention from walkers and bikers nearby. One
sound that was was almost as loud as the music, was the talking,
laughter and screams from the skaters themselves. They attracted
attention as well. If you listened close enough you could hear the
skates on the ice as well. The background noises consisted of very
nature-esque noises such as birds, the wind in the trees and the
geese. There were many geese on the still half frozen lake that in
sections took off whilst talking in their language. Other background
noises included the steps of people passing by, the conversations of
people surrounding me and the noise of a scooter and a child laughing
while racing alongside the lake. One specific soundmark was a group
of older men playing some game, I think it was checkers. They were
talking and yelling loudly with each round of the game. This area of
the park is predominantly Caribbean and their accents revealed that.
Somewhere in the distance you could hear another soundmark for the
area which was drums.